This promotion is designed to build on the goals of past mobile barcode promotions and to continue to promote awareness of how innovative technology, such as near field communication, augmented reality and authentication, can be integrated with a direct mail strategy to enhance the value of direct mail.

Registration Period: June 15 through Sept. 30, 2013

Program Period: Aug. 1 through Sept. 30, 2013

Discount Amount:2 percent of eligible postage. The Emerging Tech-nologies Promotion discount is calculated in PostalOne! and applied to the mailing statement at the time of mailing. Normal postage prices as listed in the published price schedule apply to the mailing and the discount is applied to those prices. If multiple emerging technologies are used on the same mailpiece, this discount is only applied once.

Eligible Mail Classes

Standard Mail letters and flats

Nonprofit Standard Mail letters and flats

First-Class Mail presort and automation letters, cards and flats

Source: United States Postal Service

There are some who say direct mail marketing is dead.

Their reasoning takes many tracks and varies depending on where you sit in the marketing universe. For some, the talk track goes like this:

The move into online marketing using Web banners and email has been swift and widely accepted by the brands and consumers; we no longer need to go through the pain of developing creative and tolerating the costs associated with printing and mailing direct mail marketing.

For others, the talk track is more accommodating to the value proposition of direct mail campaigns, but print is put on the back burner because of the line item costs that seem to not apply to Internet-based marketing.

Considering the pressure that most marketers are under to produce greater results with fewer dollars, it’s not surprising that direct mail looks less attractive when faced with competition from social media and other customer-facing channels.

At this point in the story, it would be easy to declare direct mail marketing to be dead, and say the future has arrived with the cost-per-engagement models of online marketing. It might be easy, but it wouldn’t be accurate.

There is ample evidence in the market to show that keeping direct mail touchpoints in your marketing mix pays off. Look at the Direct Marketing Association’s “Statistical Fact Book” for any year or reports from The Winterberry Group and you will see that direct mail marketing campaigns still play an interesting role in driving customer engagement.

The first learning is that the role of direct mail has changed. It has shifted from driving direct orders to setting the hook that drives prospects to an online forum where offers can be refined, more data can be gathered and the call to action finalized.

Pat McGrew, M-EDP, CMP is the Director and Evangelist for the Production Workflow Service at InfoTrends. As an analyst and industry educator, McGrew works with InfoTrends customers and its clients to promote workflow effectiveness. She also has a background in data-driven customer communication, and production printing with offset, inkjet, and toner. Co-author of eight industry books, editor of "A Guide to the Electronic Document Body of Knowledge," and regular writer in the industry trade press, McGrew won the 2014 #GirlsWhoPrint Girlie Award for her dedication to education and communication in the industry, and the 2016 Brian Platte Lifetime Achievement Award from Xplor International. Find Pat on Twitter as @PatMcGrew and LinkedIn.

I enjoyed your article, but i think your content is way above some audience’s capabilities considering budget, office talent and fear of doing any thing new. (especially Charities.)
Something anyone can do is combine an email with traditional mail and tell supporters by email that "something very important" is coming their way in the mail. When you do that for a few weeks, you are cancelling out most of your competitors mail "asks" until yours arrives.
For those Charities & non-profits slightly ahead of the curve, start using text messaging to notify supporters of soon to arrive snail mail or a special email and then migrate them over to their preferred method of communication.
There are three realities: traditional mail, email/online, and mobile/online, and each avenue creates results based upon your supporters demographics. The hot, new charities generating huge revenues do not use mail and their supporters are mostly all under 40. That’s got to tell you something!

Theo Pettaras

Great article Pat. Most certainly from our experience our clients have indeed benefited from this process. Thanks for sharing.

Robert W. Bell

Direct mail sent by itself is less effective and really shouldn’t been done any more.
We have launched a new Patent pending solution called LIVINGMAIL and we are seeing it combined with our mail and QR Code solution AccuTrace really increase the response and action with the mail recipients.
In my opinion, its either get ahead of the curve, or get left behind. When direct mail can, text, email, make a phone call why would you not use those mediums? Sending out just a old plane mail piece will not work like it used to.